On a night when two more of the tournament's No. 1 seeds went down in flames, the University of Portland Pilots dominated Tennessee at frigid Merlo Field Saturday, defeating the Vols 3-0 to advance to the quarterfinals of the College Cup, the NCAA women's soccer tournament.

In the process, the Pilots ran their shutout streak to nine games and 840 minutes.

UP outshot Tennessee 20-3 in the first half, taking a 2-0 lead on goals -- 135 seconds apart -- by Michelle Enyeart and Natalie Budge. Sophie Schmidt, in a dazzling Christine Sinclair impression, assisted both goals.

After the second goal, with 27:24 still remaining in the first half, Volunteer keeper Jaimel Johnson called a quick team meeting at the top of the box, hoping to fire up her defense on a night when most of the UT entourage crawled into so much winter insulation they looked like orange versions of the Michelin Man.

And what difference did that make? In the next two minutes, Johnson was forced to make two spectacular saves, and watched a third shot rocket off the crossbar.

The Volunteers arrived at Merlo Field with a 15-4-2 record, including a 2-1 win over Penn State and a scoreless tie against USC, the last team to beat Portland. And the Pilots kicked their butts at both ends of the field. With Schmidt dominating the Vols' backline, UP probably controlled the ball for 38 of the 45 minutes in the first half. Tennessee couldn't manage a corner kick until the 61st minute. Up to that point, the Vols struggled to put two or three passes together in the face of the Pilots' relentless defense.

Enyeart lined a shot past Johnson's right ear 85 seconds into the second half to give UP a 3-0 lead, at which point the Pilots eased off the gas, taking only seven shots in the game's final 43 minutes.

In the NCAA quarterfinals next weekend, Portland will face top-ranked UCLA, the only one of the No. 1 seeds still playing soccer. The Bruins beat Virginia 2-1 in overtime while North Carolina lost to Notre Dame, Stanford to Connecticut and Penn State to West Virginia.

UCLA also beat UP 2-1 in overtime back on Sept. 28. The Pilots lost to USC two days later; since then, they've reeled off 11 straight wins, outscoring their opponents 33-1. That goal, as I noted in my Thanksgiving Day column, was scored by Gonzaga's Christine Soma, who grew up in Portland and played her high-school soccer at Grant.